TRAIN OF THOUGHT

A fourth review requested by Andrew Johnson, with thanks for his many contributions to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser.One would think that an action picture from Cannon Films titled Runaway Train would be a certain thing, and and one would be wrong as hell. Even going into the film armed with certain knowledge, like the fact that it snagged two acting Oscar nominations and managed to secure a competition slot at Cannes...

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GAME OVER, MAN

A version of this review was published at the Film ExperienceThere's a good movie to be made out of Pixels, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get there. First, keep all of the visual effects setpieces from the movie as it exists, for they are surprisingly beautiful and convincing considering how much lower the film's budget than the usual summer tentpole. Second, make exactly the opposite choices that the filmmakers actually did,...

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SUMMER OF BLOOD: 21st CENTURY HORROR - YE OF LITTLE FAITH

There are many horror movies that are good until the last act, when they turn into such complete shit that it's frankly hard to remember what was good about everything up to that point. Many horror movies. The Last Exorcism, from 2010, is not necessarily distinct within that company; it does not start at the highest height, nor does it reach the lowest low. But it does stand out for how brief the bad ending actually is: only about 12 minutes before...

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SUMMER OF BLOOD: 21st CENTURY HORROR - THIS IS HALLOWEEN

All this happened years ago, and it's long since time to get over it, but it's really and truly baffling that Warner Bros. saw fit to handle Trick 'r Treat so shabbily. Having taken on the feature directorial debut of Bryan Singer's protégé Michael Dougherty (who co-wrote both X2 and Superman Returns), financed by Legendary Pictures and Singer's company Bad Hat Harry, Warner's announced a release date in time for Halloween 2007, only to cancel it...

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BEST SHOT: SAFE

Slightly more than two months ago, I watched Todd Haynes's Safe for only the second time, after several years. "Damn," I thought to myself, clear as clear can be, "this is a terrifyingly well-composed movie. I really hope Nathaniel picks it for Hit Me with Your Best Shot sometime. Because every shot is perfect. Even the most generic, functional establishing images are so clearly worked into the visual strategy of the whole movie by Haynes and cinematographer...

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BLOCKBUSTER HISTORY: WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE PLAY VIDEO GAMES

Every week this summer, we'll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend's wide releases. This week: the notorious insta-flop Pixels is an adventure about a group of competition-level video game players. It's also pandering to '80s nostalgia, so let's go ahead and travel back to that decadeThe dominant criticism of The Wizard when it was new...

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IT'S ABOUT TIME

A third review requested by Andrew Johnson, with thanks for contributing yet again to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser.Personal anecdotes aren't criticism, of course, but in this case the anecdote shall lead us to criticism, I promise. The thing is, when I was a wee cinephile, I was quite addicted to George Pal's 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine. It was almost certainly the most violent and gory movie...

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SUMMER OF BLOOD: HORROR IN THE LATE 1990s - BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH, HE KINDLY STOPPED FOR ME

I have named this penultimate leg of the final Summer of Blood "Horror in the Late 1990s", but the quick-witted will notice that Final Destination was released in 2000. And no, this isn't some enormously pretentious "you see, decades begin in the year ending in -1 and end in the year ending in -0, so 'the '90s' were actually 1991-2000" type of deal, though I would absolutely not put it past myself to do that.Rather, it's that Final Destination strikes...

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THE IMPRESSION OF NORMALCY

A review requested by Marc Lummis, with thanks for contributing to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser.There are many indisputably great films that it's clearly impossible for any normal audience member to complete unpack in all their nuances without the aid of some highly specialised arcane knowledge, but even then, writer-director Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist is a special case. It's the one and only quintessential...

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SUMMER OF BLOOD: HORROR IN THE LATE 1990S - CROCODILE SCHLOCK

The late 1990s were a deeply insincere moment in American pop culture. Emboldened primarily, I suppose by the enormous success of Jerry Seinfeld's famous stand-up and television comedy about nothing, every facet of music, movies, and television were infested by a great desire to indulge in something that was not, in fact, irony, but was described that way so pervasively that the word "ironic" now basically refers to that. To the glib, sophisticated...

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